DEAR EDITOR,

While taking my elevenses last Thursday morning and scanning through the Irish Farmers Journal, something struck me. “Unregistered fertiliser to incur €5,000 fine or more”. The day previous, the airwaves had been jammed with the case of a soldier beating a woman almost to death and being fined €3,000.

So, €3,000 for an assault or €5,000 and the loss of 100% of a farmer’s CAP payment for buying fertiliser – has the Department of Agriculture gone mad? Do they think farmers are buying fertiliser for the craic just to pour into watercourses? Or just trying to make a living for themselves and their families.

Reading on, if a highly stocked farmer wants to export 1,000 gallons of slurry to another farmer with capacity to spread it, it suddenly becomes 2,000 gallons – is this magic or something?

In some instances municipal waste is being spread on agricultural land and is not being recorded. In other instances it is being spread under licence. This presents a potential risk to our food chain. While attending a conference at the end of April that was being addressed by the Macra president, she shocked me and everyone else in attendance by saying that eight farmers took their own lives in the first 10 days of April.

Is it any wonder? I couldn’t encourage any of my own children ever doing what I am doing at the minute. This should not be the case, farmers and farm organisations need to stand up.